Thursday, February 14, 2008

Confirmed Dead Discussion, and Does Hurley See Dead People?

In this episode of the JoshMeister's LOST Podcast, tJM and guests Amanda from the Lost Flashbacks and Steve from the Smoke Hatch discuss Season 4 Episode 2, "Confirmed Dead."

The episode starts out with an ROV apparently looking for a "chest full of doubloons" (very much like the Find 815 game... however, the people navigating the ROV whose voices we heard were clearly not Sam Thomas or Mr. Ockham)

They instead found what they thought was Oceanic 815

We see a Daniel (Dan) Faraday flashback, in which he cries as he sees the news report about the alleged Flight 815 being discovered

Back on the island, Dan calls George Minkowski

Apparently there was an electrical storm

Dan has a gun

Kate: "most of them are back at the beach"

Locke: "There's a cabin I have to go to"

Hurley: "The cabin is back that way."

Locke: "What did you say, Hugo?"

Ben looks at Hurley, apparently just as surprised as Locke that Hurley has apparently seen Jacob's cabin

She smiles upon finding the Hydra logo - is she a DHARMA Intiative employee? Are all of them currently working for DHARMA? This might explain the gas mask; they don't want to get gassed like Ben did to his father

Daniel says he's a physicist and talks about how the light scatters strangely

Miles claims he "collects soil samples"

Feigns surprise about Find 815

Josh's wife Kylene suggested at the commercial break that Miles wasn't surprised because he can talk to dead people and thus already knew they weren't dead

They showed actual bodies in the plane - whose bodies are they really? Were they planted there by Widmore? Abaddon?

Seth Norris is the name of the pilot, whose alleged body was not wearing Seth's wedding ring, which Frank notices as proof that it's not the real pilot

When asked how he knows so much about the pilot, Frank says: "because I was supposed to be flying Oceanic 815 on that day"

What is the significance of Frank seeing a cow? Just to prove that there are random cows roaming on the island providing food for the Others, like Mikhail's meat locker in the Flame station (and lack of many cows outside) hinted

Ben shot (but didn't kill) Charlotte - she was wearing a bulletproof vest! She knew there was danger on the island

Frank Lapidus landed the chopper safely

Flashback: Naomi says: "So this is the team?"

Matthew Abaddon hired Naomi to lead the operation?!

Locke to Ben: "What is the monster?"

Ben: "I don't know."

Ben says that he knows why the freighties are there—for him! And he reveals several details about Charlotte Staples Lewis' life, which shocks her

Locke: "How do you know all this?"

Ben: "Because I have a man on their ship."

Also discussed:

Master Nak's theory that Hurley can see dead people:

Hurley isn't crazy; he can see dead people. I want to rewatch the Season 2 episode when we first hear about Dave... but I have a hunch Dave was really a dead guy. Maybe a guy who died in the mental institute and hung around Hurley.Supporting evidence:Hurley can see Jacob at first, but when he closes his eyes and looks again, suddenly the whole cabin is gone. Maybe Jacob is dead, just a spirit?Charlie certainly seems pretty real when he appears to Hurley in the flash forward.

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[...] There is one interesting scene [in the episode "Dave"], however:

Hurley walks into the gym to see Dave playing basketball with the other patients. At one point, Dave yells for the "rock" to be passed to him. Immediately afterward, the ball is passed to Hurley, who just happens to be standing directly behind Dave. Could it be that the patient was able to hear Dave speak but couldn't see him, and thus mistook his voice for Hurley's? Paralleling Hurley's flash forward, another patient was able to see Charlie. Interesting... [Josh notes: Could this mean that Hurley is actually able to subconsciously project his imaginary friends or delusions so that other people can sometimes sense them?]

Perhaps Hurley is only able to see these spirits when he is in a disturbed emotional state. He was able to see Jacob because he had become separated from the others and was distressed. Dave seems to disappear after Hurley shuts the window on him in the flash back, but he returns right after Hurley sees that a new food package has been dropped on the island. We don't know much about the "future," but perhaps Hurley could see Charlie because he was worried that he made a mistake by leaving the island. When Hurley gains control of his emotions, he isn't able to see the spirits anymore (which is why Jacob's cabin [Josh: and Charlie] disappeared).

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Hmm... just read your blog about Ep. 1. This seems to give support to my theory that Hurley can see dead people.

Christian Shephard did not die on the island, but Hurley saw him there. This could support my idea that Dave is really the spirit of someone who died in Santa Rosa.Also, Hurley has never (at least, not yet) seen Dave again on the island since Libby brought him back to his senses. He didn't need to take any Clonazepam in order to stop seeing him. If he was truly crazy, it's unlikely Dave would have just stopped showing up.

Also, Locke didn't just "somehow run off" after throwing the knife at Naomi. They show him calmly walking away in the Season 3 finale. As to the "how," Jack is too busy talking on the satellite phone to bother chasing after him.

Josh suggested that perhaps the guy who pointed out Charlie to Hurley was actually in Hurley's imagination as well

Josh asked whether anyone noticed whether Desmond went with Locke or Jack, and callers on the show said that he went with Jack

Jorge Garcia, the actor who plays Hurley, said on Jay and Jack's podcast that the actor whose eye popped up in the window was NOT an actor who has played a regular role on the show before (thus, the theory that it was Locke in the cabin was apparently untrue... which is backed up by the fact that in Episode 2 Locke was surprised that Hurley knew about the cabin)

Also, Jorge wasn't told what to paint, so we can't read too much into Hurley's painting of an Eskimo and an igloo

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Josh, nice podcast. I was concerned however, when you were talking about Abaddon that you didn't connect what we find out in episode 2 to what we found out from episode 1: namely that Abaddon asks Hurley 'Are they still alive?'.

To remind you, you were talking about when Naomi was talking to Matthew and commented that Naomi thought that there were survivors of 815 when Abaddon didn't think there were. But, what does that mean, knowing what we know from episode 1? Well, It depends on how we interpret what Abaddon was saying in ep 1. Was Abaddon asking Hurley whether i) there were more people from the 815 crash that are still alive (what I asumed when I first saw the episode) or ii) was he asking whether HIS crew was still alive, or iii) was he just trying to stir Hurley's pot?

I think iii) is unlikely, as there would be little motive for Abaddon to try to unsettle Hurley. i) seems likely but given that from ep 2 Abaddon doesn't seem to think there are 815 survivors I would learn closer to ii). But really both i) and ii) don't make a whole lot of sense. If either i) or ii) were true, Abaddon must be missing out on a whole lot of information. Let me explain:

If possibility i) is true: Abaddon should know that there are 815 survivors on the island if he sent a group to the island to kill Ben. They should have told him they were there (unless his team all end up getting killed).

If possibility ii) is true: Similarly, Abaddon should know if there are still some of his team on the island because they are presumably the group that have brought the Oceanic 6 back to America.

It's just something I'm thinking about while waiting for 'The Economist' (I'm in Australia and we're one episode behind)

Thanks for the great comment, Billy Anachronism. We actually talked about this on the next episode of my podcast (among other Confirmed Dead topics), recorded right after The Economist aired in the U.S.

I haven't edited that podcast episode yet, but once it's posted I'll mention in the show notes that we discussed Abaddon's question to Hurley.

Amazing blog and podcast. I am an MBA student working with a web startup called Overcast (overcastmedia.com) It allows users to overlay their own commentary on top of any video source. GREAT and easy way to analyze Lost episodes. I encourage you to check it out.